Hay treatments and supplements for feeding ruminants such as cattle generally are designed to improve the nutritional content of the hay, especially of hay that has been stored for a time, or to provide a liquid or particulate feed supplement that may be made available in a feeding trough or lickwheel or applied as a top dressing to grains or other roughage.
Beef and dairy cows will naturally feed on grass when it is available. However, it is common for owners of cows to cut and bale hay, or to purchase it, for use during the fall and winter months, when grass is sparse or unavailable. Because of the difficulty in accurately predicting weather conditions more than a few days in advance, it is frequently impossible to estimate the amount of hay that will be necessary to feed the cows in a particular pasture until new grass emerges in the spring. However, hay that is not used during the season following its cutting and baling will generally lose a considerable portion of its nutritional content, including as much as 33% of its protein, when compared to fresh hay. In addition, old or aged hay is frequently more difficult for the cows to digest. Furthermore, fresh hay will also taste better to the cows, which will result in the fresher hay being preferred whenever cows have a choice. Under such circumstances, an owner may find that hay that is not consumed during the fall and winter after it has been cut and baled will not be consumed thereafter and will therefore be wasted.
Most known treatments for hay, especially old or aged hay, are designed to add ammonia, urea or lye to pre-digest the hay in order to make it easier for cows to digest. Such treatments generally require that ammonia, urea or lye be injected into or sprayed onto a bale of hay, and the bale wrapped in plastic or other impervious material for up to six weeks while the pre-digestion process takes place. Thus for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,172 of Miller describes a method and apparatus for wrapping a bale of hay and injecting it with ammonia. The apparatus includes a turntable with a plurality of spikes on which the bale may be impaled and an adjacent roll holder for holding a roll of plastic or other wrapping material. The turntable is rotated while the wrapping material is wrapped around the bale, and ammonia is pumped from a storage tank through the central spike on the turntable into the bale. While the apparatus of Miller may be mounted to the three-point hitch of a tractor, other mechanisms are known for use in treating a bale of hay while it is being transported. U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,178 of Korsgaard describes a method and apparatus for treating hay bales with ammonia or another lye agent. The apparatus comprises a tractor that is provided with a rear-mounted ammonia tank and a front hay-loader having a frame to which are attached a plurality of spears and an ammonia distributor. Each of the spears is provided with an external injector pipe which is connected by a hose to the ammonia source. A bale of hay is impaled on the front hay-loader and ammonia or lye is injected through the injector pipes into the bale as the tractor is being used to transport the bale. Although ammonia, lye and urea may be used to pre-digest aged hay so as to make it easier for cows to consume, the hay must be treated for several weeks before it may be used, and even then, its palatability is not significantly improved. Hay that is treated with ammonia or lye cannot therefore be consumed immediately after treatment. Furthermore, ammonia and lye and treatments containing such components are quite caustic and consequently hazardous to store and handle.
It is also known to treat hay and other animal feeds with supplements of various types. Thus, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,196,138 of Muller describes a method and apparatus for impregnating baled alfalfa with molasses by placing the bale in a casing and inserting a distributing pipe into the bale. Molasses is then pumped through the pipe and into the bale. This method may make aged hay more palatable, but it will not significantly increase its nutritional value.
It is also known to provide nutrition-enhancing cattle feed supplements of various types. U.S. Pat. No. 989,478 of Bertels describes a meal-based cattle feed supplement containing a food component such as ground meals of hay and oats, a vegetable oil component such as linseed oil, and molasses. U.S. Pat. No. 4,225,620 of Rawlings et al. describes a method for preparing a particulate feed supplement that may be added to forage cellulose for ruminants. This supplement is derived from animal or vegetable protein sources such as soymeal, bone meal, blood meal, blood and milk whey. It is dissolved in water (unless it is already in a water-based liquid form) and its pH is adjusted with an alkaline agent such as alkali metal hydroxides and alkaline earth metal hydroxides to a level within the range of about 9 to about 13.5. The solution is then dried to form a particulate feed supplement.
Liquid feed supplements are also available for use in lickwheel feeders and as top dressings for grain. PM Ag Products Incorporated of Homewood, Ill. supplies a liquid supplement, sold under the trademark PRO-LIX, which contains cane molasses (which has been processed to remove sugars), urea, condensed fermented corn extractives, condensed molasses fermentation solubles, feed grade fat, phosphoric acid, ammonium polyphosphate, sulfuric acid, zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate, ferrous sulfate, copper sulfate, vitamin A acetate, magnesium sulfate, D-activated animal sterol, sodium selenite, ethylenediamine dihydriodide, vitamin E acetate and cobalt sulfate.
Particulate and grain based supplements may provide enhanced nutritional value, but they can be expensive to obtain. Furthermore, it can be difficult to insure that these supplements, as well as the liquid supplements, are available to all of the cows in a herd. Supplemental rations are usually provided in feed troughs and lickwheels, and when the troughs or lickwheels are filled, it is common for the larger and more aggressive animals to push the smaller and more docile animals away in order to consume more than their share of the supplement, resulting in an imbalance in the nutrition provided across the herd.
It would be desirable if a method and composition could be provided that could be used to improve the nutritional content of hay and make it more palatable to cows. It would also be desirable if this method and composition could be employed to rejuvenate old or aged hay. Finally, it would be desirable if an apparatus could be provided that would provide for easy and quick treatment of the hay.